


Once Upon A Time

by geicogecko



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cinderella Fusion, Alternate Universe - Rapunzel Fusion, But its a cinderella and rapunzel AU so bad stuff happening is kinda a given, Cinderella Au but the ball essentially plays very little part, Eddie is Rapunzel, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Physical Abuse, Richie is cinderella, Sort Of, Stan is prince charming, There will be more chapters I just don't know how to fix that, there is fluff too i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geicogecko/pseuds/geicogecko
Summary: Once upon a time there was a prince whose heavy crown and list of rules crushed his curls and blocked his view of the birds from his window.Once upon a time there was a servant of sorts, asleep by a fireplace, jokes and smile too sunny for his circumstances and glasses smudged with cinders.Once upon a time there was a child, so delicate and sickly his mother believed he was only safe alone in a tower. But he was too brave and bright for it to hold him forever.Once upon a time these three boys met, far sooner than your story books would lead you to believe,  and that is where our story begins.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier/Stanley Uris
Comments: 14
Kudos: 96





	1. Prologue

STAN  
King Donald Uris was a strict man. 

Now it wasn’t entirely his fault, his father had been stricter than he, and his grandfather even more so but from the moment Crown Prince Stanley Uris was born he had been taught the strict rules set for a future King. It wasn’t that the prospect of being King didn’t excited him (at least it did when he was little, by 11 any lasting novelty had been burnt out) but he found the secret moments sneaking down to the kitchens late at night with Bill, who was training to be his future advisor, far more exciting. 

By the age of 3 he had begun to wear his crown from the moment he woke to when he went to bed, little head held high as a heavy gold circlet flattened his curls. By the age of 4 he had cried for the last time, as respectable princes do not do that sort of thing. By the age of 6 he had been told to watch in on his father’s board meetings, sitting stiff and silent and taking in policy after policy until his eyes burned from boredom. But once he had fallen asleep and there had been absolute hell to pay, which Stan didn’t want to repeat. His life was monotonous, forcefully structured. and dull, and had he not had Bill and the birds he liked to watch out of his window he might have thought that was what he liked. 

When Stan turned 7 he was told he had to begin his horseback riding lessons, it was proper princely activity after all. Stan wasn’t excited, despite Bill’s conviction that S-stan horses are so c-c-cool! I w-w-wish I knew how to r-ride! (Bill’s stutter had been a point of argument between his parents, not perfect enough for how his dad wanted his royal appearance to look. It had been decided to be fine as he’d ‘grow out of it’, once they got older a part of Stan thought that Bill held onto it for spite). The horses scared him, but when he had told his father that his squeeze on his hands got a bit too tight and his smile too strained as he said: ‘Well you really do not have a choice, Stanely’ and that had been the end of that. So he was dressed too nicely for horseback riding and lead to the stables. By the end of the day Stan had reconfirmed his hatred of horses but still, he practically ran to his lessons each week if only for the few minutes he got to spend with the stable hand. 

At 7 Stan had made a second friend in one Micheal Hanlon, and the nights where they snuck into the kitchen became more fun. Mike was all wide smiles and big hugs (once he had asked, of course, if that was ‘okay your majesty?’), perfectly complimenting Bills confident grins and clever schemes and Stan’s oddness and forced maturity. 

Mike had introduced him to their 3rd friend a few months later, a girl named Beverly who had stubbornly forced the royal seamstress to teach her all she knew. Stan knew she wasn’t a real apprentice, she was 8 and couldn’t do much more than sort threads and watch wide eyed. However she was spunky and kind and sometimes when Stan’s father got to be too much she would sneak him away with the excuse of needing to measure him for a new tunic or pair of pants and they would sit in between the rolls of fabric and pass pieces of broken up cookie Bev had in her pocket back and forth while giggling. 

Stan was 12 when his father found the four in the kitchen at Midnight, Stan’s crown perched crookedly on Bill’s head and his silk royal pajamas covered in flour.

They had been too loud, gotten too comfortable in their safe little world, and Mike had tried to teach them all to make muffins, it hadn’t gone well. The king’s face had turned an odd shade of reddish-purple as he had roared for the other three to get out. Shame faced and shaking Bill had handed Stan his crown and they had shuffled out, glancing back nervously. Stan had felt his heart climb up to his throat and tears gather and burn behind his eyes as his father screamed and screamed.  
“Well maybe I just wanted to have fun and be normal for once in my life!” 

And his father struck him. 

Any fire that had built up in Stan drained out instantly replaced by shock. In all his sharp words and strict guidelines his father had never hit him. He could barely hear him as blood rushed to his ears.  
“You are crown prince of our kingdom Stanley. You don’t get to be normal, you don’t get to be your own person. You are going to be king and the quicker you accept that the easier it will be.” His father’s voice had slipped from screaming to low and cold. He turned on his heel, grabbing Stan by his wrist and to his room, hissing ‘get cleaned up’ before leaving and locking the door. 

And for the first time in years Stan began to cry.

He looked to his window. It wasn’t too high, he could climb down. Not to run away, of course not, he needed to make sure his friends didn’t get punished and he had lessons in the morning (and he had a board meeting to sit in on tomorrow, the floury circlet in his hands reminded him). But he needed to get out now. So he set his circlet on his desk, changed out of his pajamas into something dull Bill had accidently left in his room, and Crown Prince Stanley Uris broke the biggest rule he ever had in his life, and perhaps did the stupidest thing he had ever done. 

He snuck out and into the woods, for once brain not racing with rules or fear. After walking for a few minutes he realized the palace was out of sight, and whooped in a very unprincley fashion before sprinting through the trees. He was free. So he ran and ran and ran.  
Until he slammed into another small body at the base of a tower.

RICHIE  
Richie Tozier had the best life ever, or, at least, he did once upon a time. 

He was born to a rich family, with a great big house out in the countryside, but one might say what truly made his life so perfect wasn’t his privilege but his parents. Maggie and Wentworth Tozier were wonderful people and there was nothing they loved more than their son. They adored his rambunctious energy and messy creativity and off the wall weirdness. 

His father would scoop him out of bed each morning, swinging him up as he screamed with laughter, poking his big glasses on and chatting to him about his daily plans in a silly accent as he trotted him to the kitchen. Richie always responded in a bad impersonation which amused the Tozier parents to no end. His mother was an excellent chef, despite the size of their home and the money they possessed they had little in the way of servants, both of his parents were uncomfortable with the idea of being waited on and Richie was more than happy to play along with his mother’s cleaning and cooking games even though he never really did a very good job. 

And everything was perfect.

Until Richie was 8 and his father ruffled his hair and tucked him in, and never woke him up in the morning.  
He trudged downstairs later than normal, ready to tease his father for over sleeping, he didn’t get the chance. He took in the scene at the base of his stairs with the uncomprehending fear of a child who didn’t know what was wrong exactly but he had an idea. Maggie was disheveled, glassy eyes and hands clasped firmly over her mouth, a man in a big black coat with a big black bag staring grimly, mouth set in a firm line as he shook his head.  
Wentworth lay across the couch, pale and unmoving. 

Everything turned blurry, and if you asked him to recall the day his father died suddenly of an illness he had been hiding for months, he wouldn’t be able to. He recalls running to grab his hand before the man in the big black coat pushed him back sharply. He vaguely remembers being shepherded back to his room. He might even think of his mother’s sob filled and vague explanation.  
But if you asked him to describe how his father’s hand had felt in the split second he held it, cold and still and dead, he would have been able to analyze every detail. 

That was the moment the perfect life of the Tozier’s ended.

2 months later his mother remarried: a financial necessity, she had too, he has two boys it’ll be good for Richie to have other kids to play with, and thousands of more excuses spilled from her lips when she told him. He had nodded, faking a smile and reassuring her that he understood. But he didn’t. He just missed his dad.

Oscar Bowers was a big man, easily angered and scary, he made it clear to Richie he had only married his mother for the money before smiling easily at her when she floated into the room, not quite there. She was almost always in a state of not quite there since Wentworth died, too deep into her grief to truly realize how fake everything was. Oscar Bowers did indeed have two boys, Henry who was older and Connor who was Richie’s age, but they weren’t quite the play mates his mother had claimed they would be. Henry was cruel and mocking, tripping Richie as he walked past and stealing his glasses to laugh as he stumbled without them, he called him names, things like fairy and poof that Richie didn’t understand but still made his insides crawl. Connor was a little better, quieter and in the first few days before Henry had decided Richie was a prime bullying target he had even shot him small smiles or played cards with him in the sitting room, but he was Henry’s most devoted follower (mostly through fear) and after the first time he heard him call Richie a fairy the smiles and card games disappeared.

But it was okay, the Tozier house was gloomier and Richie was just 8 years old and trying to cope with the death of his father while making his mother think he was alright, but the Bowers left him (mostly) alone, and his mother would still tuck him in like his dad had. And it was okay.

His mother died a year later, she had been traveling the town over to visit a sick friend when there had been an accident. That was all he was told. There wasn’t a funeral like their had been for his father, it was as though she had never existed in the first place. 

Richie had run to his room when the news broke, sobbing himself to exhaustion and slipping into an uneasy sleep. He was woken two hours later by Oscar Bower’s big hand tearing him out from under the covers.

“Due to the death of your mother everything in this house belongs to me, including you, you know this right?” Richie, sleepy and devastated had nodded automatically, brain barely processing.  
“I don’t need another son, especially not a fucking puffball one, but Henry convinced me there might be some use for you yet.” His hand on Richie’s arm grew tight enough to bruise as he dragged him to the living room. The 9 year old was thrown to the carpet, he didn’t fight back, no one had ever handled him so roughly before, or treated him so much like he wasn’t a person and it made his head spin. 

“You will earn your keep here. I always thought it was fucking stupid this household didn’t have any servants and now it does.”

And Richie watched helplessly as Henry took his room and clothes and toys, he slept by the fireplace, curling around himself by the embers when it got too cold at night, he waited on the people who were supposed to be his family, and he had never felt more alone. 

He got very good at dodging smacks and kicks, the Bowers not appreciating his snark and jokes.  
(He learned what the names meant one night when he tried to fight back, Henry had punched him and slammed him against the wall, hissing that if he didn’t comply he’d tell the kingdom that Richie was a fucking fairy, explaining all the ways that could get him killed.  
“Clean that the fuck up.” He growled, grinding the mud from his boots and the blood pouring from Richie’s nose into the carpet once he dropped him.  
“Yes sir.”)

And 3 years passed, Richie Tozier could safely say he no longer had the best life ever. 

Some nights, when he had completed his tasks early, he snuck off to wander the woods, just to get out, it was an art he had perfected by necessity. He had never run into anyone else on these walks, which, to be fair still held true as the first person he met had quite literally ran into him, not the other way around.

EDDIE  
Sonia Kaspbrak had once been a lovely woman, a bit overprotective and neurotic, but generally pleasant to be around. Her and her husband were so in love that almost everyone in their small village knew about it, some women even paying her visits at tea time to ask for advice. 

When her son was born (a month and a half early, he was so very tiny) her overprotective instincts had soared, only balanced out by Frank Kaspbrak’s more easy going nature. Frank had adored his son, bouncing the baby and tossing him lightly which made him shake with giggles and his wife panic.

They were a happy family, they had their flaws but together they were almost perfect. But then illness had swept the village. And Frank had been a casualty.  
If you asked many of the villagers today they would have said all three Kaspbraks had died, as after her husband’s death Sonia snapped. Life was much safer for her delicate, little Eddie-bear at the top of a tower in the middle of the woods.

So Eddie Kaspbrak grew up isolated in one circular stone room, every corner sanded smooth and each inch of hard, cold floor padded with carpets and pillows. He had asked once when he was 5 why he couldn’t go outside; he had been scrubbed clean and wrapped so tightly in blankets he couldn’t move. His mother had wept and he went to bed that night (at 4:45 pm, he was sickly and needed his rest) with a list of reasons why the outside world was out to kill him. How everyone was filthy and ill, how he was weak and susceptible to disease, how she was the only one in the world who could protect him. 

Eddie lived watching through his window longing to see what was outside it, but too afraid to try. He was pretty sure, when he squinted and kneeled on his window ledge he could see the top spires of a castle, like the ones in his soft-sided picture book but small and far away. His mother had caught him kneeling on the ledge one day and had thrown herself into a frenzy and forbid him from ever doing it again, listing the gruesome ways his fragile little bones could shatter until he cried. But he still made up stories about princesses and princes he thought lived in the palace, their perfect lives and beautiful opulence. Because his mother could teach him to fear the real world, but she could never stop him from imagining that it was different from what he knew it to be. 

Once Eddie turned 10 his mother started leaving every Thursday to do what needed to be done outside the tower, as she said she could “finally trust him alone” instead of sneaking away throughout the week in small increments while he slept. So at exactly 12 PM on every Thursday she would coddle Eddie and reassure herself that he was okay before heading out and returning home at 10 AM on Friday with groceries and medicine for the week. Eddie anticipated every Thursday with an equal mix of excitement and dread, Thursday meant Eddie could hang off his bed and read the stories in his books his mother said were “too upsetting for his delicate sensibilities” and shout and stare out his window as long as he wants too without his mother pulling him away. But Thursdays also came with the fear of being alone, if anything went wrong Eddie knows he wouldn’t be able to protect himself, without his mother he wasn’t safe. 

So when two boys climbed up his tower and into his window at 1 in the morning on a Thursday when he was guiltily staying up 6 hours past his bedtime just because he could, Eddie was convinced he was going to be murdered. 

So he burst into tears and threw the book he’d been flipping through at the closest presumed assailant.


	2. In Which They All Meet

“Who the fuck are you?” Stan quickly retracted the hand he had stuck out to help the other boy up. 

That was not the reaction he had been expecting, even though in all fairness, he did just launch himself into the stranger by accident. It was weird, no one had ever been so rude to him, and no one had ever asked who he was. The missing weight of his crown felt more apparent than before. Maybe he shouldn’t lead with the fact that he was the crown prince to the strange, filthy forest boy.

“I’m… Stan. Who the fuck are you?” The bravado he had been trying to ask with was a little ruined by how he laughed when he cursed, he didn’t often, but he was Not-Prince-Stan right now, and maybe Not-Prince-Stan did that kind of thing. He was still sort of figuring all of this out. 

“Richie. I’ve never seen you ‘round these parts.” The boy… Richie’s previous shocked anger seemed to have melted away into something more unsure, even as he slipped into a vague accent and put his hands on his hips. It was then that Stan finally took in his crash victim. Richie was tall, but far too skinny for the height, he looked like someone had stretched him upwards so he was all gangly limbs and negative body fat (it didn’t seem all that healthy to Stan if he was being honest). He had curly hair, less coiled than Stan’s and darker, but still curly and he wore too big glasses, one side clearly broken but fixed poorly. He wasn’t wearing shoes. Stan sort of wondered if the boy lived in the woods but that seemed rude to ask.

“What are these parts?” He asked instead.

“No fucking clue Stan the Man!” Which made Stan snort despite himself and some of Richie’s uncertainty seem to melt away. He shot Stan a crooked grin which Stan returned a second later.

“Then how exactly would you know I haven’t been here before?” Richie shrugged at that.

“Well you got that fancy crest thing on your clothes,” He flicked the tiny emblem embroidered on the chest of his shirt, “I mean I think its the royal one but I dunno, so unless you stole it you prolly work there and castle servants don’t normally run around in the woods.” Stan hadn’t quite expected Richie to be so… astute. He supposed his knowledge of the Royal Crest meant he probably lived in an actual home and not the forest. Stan was still kicking himself for not checking Bill’s plain brown tunic when he realized Richie was no longer observing him but instead focusing his attention up. He was still smiling. 

“What the hell is this thing? Wanna climb it?” Stan’s head whirled with rules. 

Princes don’t climb trees.   
Princes don’t talk to strangers alone.  
Princes must not do anything irresponsibly dangerous.   
Princes don’t dress like their friend-servants and leave their crowns and run away to the woods and talk to observational boys with nice smiles who look like they’re homeless. (That last one wasn’t a written rule but Stan was sure it would have been if it wasn’t incredibly specific and weird).

But Stan wasn’t quite thinking clearly, and there was something about the Richie kid he trusted and he was being reckless today.

“Race you!” Richie laughed delightedly (Stan decided he liked his laugh) before grabbing a slightly protruding brick and pulling himself upward. And Stan followed.

It was almost a tie (Stan didn’t have much upper body strength and while Richie’s arms were honestly sort of strong from scrubbing floors and chopping firewood he was sleep deprived and sort of malnourished, it’s just that Stan didn’t know about all of that yet), but Stan still managed to pull himself over the window ledge first.

Which means Stan got nailed in the chest with a hardcover storybook.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” He heard from behind him, and he’s pretty sure someone in front of him is crying (which he is pretty confident is the Story Book Assailant and not Richie) but he’s a little too thrown from being hit for the second time in his life, very hard, with a book, to really pay much attention (and really what was it, be violent towards Stanley Uris day? Stan kind of felt like crying again).

“GO AWAY MURDERERS!” is shrieked and Stan finally looks up in time to see a pillow hit the wall and Richie expertly dodge it before… cowering and shielding himself in a way that seemed disconnected from the observant, grinning boy he’d talked to outside. 

The boy throwing projectiles was small, short even from where he stood on his bed, his doll like face contorted into fear he was trying to pretend was scary. It wasn’t really working but Stan had been well versed in how someone not intimidating on the outside could be a secret assassin or a cover up for a bigger threat. But why would there be an assassin in the woods? And he wasn’t the prince right now. 

“We’re not here to kill you we didn’t know you were here!” He shouted over the boy’s sobs, which made the boy’s head shoot up in confusion and his arms (preparing another pillow projectile) drop. 

“I don’t believe you.” His voice sounded small, from the corner of his eye Stan saw Richie slightly uncurl.

“Dude why the hell would we be murderers, I’m 12!” Richie added, and Stan nodded in solidarity.

“Well I’m 12 too and… I could murder… if I wanted too!” Stan was pretty sure Richie and him had similar unconvinced smirks aimed at the smaller boy.

“Ok fine but I bet your diseased! Especially him!” He whined, holding his pillow as more of a shield now and pointing it defensively to Richie.

“That’s fair. But I’m probably not.” Richie defended unconvincingly and Stan kicked his side lightly, regretting it a bit when the boy flinched. 

“I am absolutely not diseased. I’m sorry we didn’t know anyone lived here. I’m Stan.” Stan, suddenly remembering his etiquette classes and sticking out his hand in greeting.

The boy didn’t take it but he lowered his pillow into his lap.

“I’m Richie by the way!” Richie grinned, still seated on the floor.

“Eddie. Now leave.” Eddie shifted away from them on his bed, and as if some cosmic force was listening and decided then and there that it should start pouring. 

“Fuck.” Richie sounded from the floor.

“I don’t think we can climb down in that without dying.” Stan agreed, maybe he should have taken into account the cloudy sky before running away.

“I don’t care! Get out I’m not catching your diseases, or getting murdered, or having an allergic reaction from pollen you have on your clothes, or-”

“Jesus Eds, we’re not gonna hurt you!” 

“I just told you my name was Eddie!”

“Eds calm down, I’m sorry but I’m not breaking my neck trying to climb down a tower in the pouring rain.” Richie seemed to be enjoying this.

“FINE but don’t touch me“

-

“-Yeah so that’s how I realized I’m actually very allergic to pears and your mouth is not in fact supposed to burn like that!” 

“Oh my GOD that’s so STUPID! Wait! Are allergies contagious? Because I don’t think so but my mom has never told me they aren’t and I have a lot of allergies so I’d probably catch them really easy!” Stan doesn’t think he's ever laughed as hard as tonight, Richie was absolutely ridiculous in his incredibly well timed storytelling, that matched with Eddies over the top responses, and had left Stan cackling. He felt freer here than he ever did at the palace. He didn’t want to go back to being “Prince Stanley” and damn if that realization didn’t hit him like a horse drawn carriage.

“BEEP BEEP RICHIE EW!” Evidently he had missed something. 

“Beep Beep?” Stan asked over Richie’s happily confused laughter.

“I don’t know! It was the first thing I thought of to get him to stop talking!”

“Not… shut up?” Eddie’s head cocked confusedly and he shrugged.

“Dude you’ve seriously never heard shut up before?” Richie leaned forward on his heels.

“Well my mom has never told me to “shut up” before so how would I know!” He says ‘Shut Up’ skeptically like he doesn’t believe its a real term, not noticing the look Stan and Richie share. The same look that they gave each other when Richie had noticed Eddie staring at the two of them intently earlier and he had only said ‘Stan sort of looks like the boys from my books but you’re too gross Rich.’. The look that conveyed ‘shit I don’t think he’s ever left this tower before’.

“Beep Beep… I sort of like it.” Stan tests out the phrase on his tongue.

“It’s better than fucking shut up.” Richie says in a tone too serious for the boy Stan had been sort of weird-bonding with all night. While Eddie’s whole deal was sort of an open book, Richie remained a concerning mystery. 

“Shit is that the time?” Richie leapt up to stare at the small cuckoo clock attached to the wall (so firmly attached it sort of seemed like overkill to Stan) which read 4:45 AM.

“Oh no. Shit. I need to go like right now.” Stan felt his chest grow tight, his dad expected him awake and at the breakfast table by 6 sharp and he had absolutely no idea how to get home or how to sneak back in. His night of freedom was starting to come apart like wet bread. His father was going to kill him. 

“Hey Staniel you still with us? Breathe, buddy.” And it took him a minute to process that Richie was in front of him, hands on his shoulders, and Eddie behind him looking nervous.

“I need to get home.” He sounded scared and whiny to his own ears, but Richie barely reacted.

“Okay. Yeah, me too. So... breathe and we can go!” 

“It stopped raining a while ago, you’ll be safer.” Eddie added softly, maybe a little sadly. 

“Can we come back?” It was impulsive and honestly Stan didn’t know if he’d have the nerve or ability to leave again but… he really wanted to. And from Richie’s excited grin and Eddie’s hesitant but relieved looking smile… maybe they did too.

“Yes, please! I still need to get Eds to hug me!”

“Beep BEEP never gonna happen!” 

Their laughter tapered as Richie swung his leg over the window ledge. And Stan followed. And Eddie stood awkwardly in the middle of his little stone room. 

Stan was halfway to the ground when he heard bare feet running across padding and Eddie stuck his head through the window and shouted:

“My mom is gone every Thursday… 12 PM to 10 AM on Friday! Now please don’t break your neck climbing the rest of the way down, okay?”


	3. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Eddie rethinks some things, Stan makes a new friend, and Richie tries to serve breakfast. And they all pray for Thursday to come sooner.  
> (TW! Some physical and emotional abuse, sorry Sonia, Donald, and Henry Suck)

EDDIE

Eddie looks out the window for far longer than he probably should have, even after Richie and Stan part ways at the base of his tower and disappear from view. 

And when he finally tears himself away, he is alone. 

Instantly the adrenaline of the night wore off, he had been awake for far too long and had far too much excitement for someone with such a weak constitution. 

Most worrying though, was the feeling of uncertainty that creeped through his gut. He had never doubted his mother, there had never been the need, she knew what was best. 

But still, Stanley and Richie weren’t diseased, they didn’t try to kidnap him or hurt him or steal his organs to sell to the evil witches that would use them for spells like his had mother claimed.  
He didn’t know what to think, so he straightened his room unconsciously as his mind raced.

Stan had been so perfectly clean cut looking, like one of the boys from his stories. Sweet and well spoken, perfect posture and almost awkwardly constant eye contact. Eddie trusted him and he didn’t know why, he wasn’t supposed to trust strangers, they wanted to hurt him and infect him with their diseases. But not Stan.

Richie had been harder to accept, he had looked like all the contaminated, filthy humans his mother had claimed existed outside the quarantined safety of his tower. He was crude and loud, too thin and so dirty he’d left faint dirty footprints on a blanket he’d used. (Eddie had thrown it out the window, he couldn’t hide that from his mother). But Richie was so funny Eddie had fallen off his bed laughing, his eyes were bright and laugh prettier than it had any right to be. And against his better judgement, Eddie trusted him too. 

Eventually he went to sleep at 6 in the morning, and dreamt about a head of golden curls and a set mirthful eyes behind cracked lenses.

“EDDIE-BEAR!” 

He woke several hours later to a large hand forcing itself against his forehead.

“Mommy? You’re home early?” His mother retracted her hand, rushing to a bag she had set on the table.

“It is 10, Eddie-bear are you ill? You feel warm, you never sleep this late unless your ill! Did you stay up late last night Eddie, you know that you have a delicate immune system you can’t be staying up late!” Eddie padded over to where his mother was pulling dozens of unlabeled bottles, that Eddie had long come to recognize as medicine, out of a soft sided sack. 

“Mommy, I feel fine, really, I actually feel great!” And he did! He was tired and still a bit uncomfortable with the new information from last night stewing in his mind but he felt healthy. He didn’t feel fragile at all, he hadn’t last night either (a realization that didn’t help his newly contrasting world views make any more sense).

His mother eyed him in a way he couldn’t read, something dark swimming behind her eyes for a moment before she turned back to her bag and let out a triumphant cackle. She placed a green glass bottle between his lips, tilting his head back, which he accepted on autopilot. 

As the medicine burned down his throat he realized he had been wrong, he felt weak and sleepy and his stomach ached uncomfortably. Eddie whined against the glass.

“Oh baby what did I say! You are sick! Now, why didn’t you listen to me Eddie-bear, I know what is best for you!” She pulled him close, and he let her tuck him back into his bed.

“ ‘m sorry mommy.” She pressed her lips to his forehead too hard and tsked, after she walked away, he could hear the distinct clinking of her lining bottles and jars up in the medicine cabinet. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so trusting to two strangers.

Of course, he still to let Stan and Richie come back, just to check that they were what got him sick, right? 

(Deep down he knew that wasn’t the only reason he was already counting down the days until next Thursday).

STAN

There looked like there were more guards in the daylight and Stan cursed his lack of foresight because shit how was he getting back in. It was definitely getting close to 6. 

He wasn’t even close to his bedroom window, so getting in unnoticed would be almost impossible. If he hadn’t already started a kingdom wide search when his mother went into his room to check on him or something and found it empty.

Oh god anything could have gone wrong with him gone, why didn’t he think this through? He scanned the castle side, there were (at the moment) no guards under the window closest to him, and he didn’t know where it lead to but it was better than nothing. 

It lead to the library.

And also was a much farther drop than Stan had been expecting, landing with a startled screech on something squirming and uncomfortable.

On Someone. Oops.

“Oh my gosh are you ok? Your highness, oh my GOSH. I am so sorry!” The Someone under him apologized as they scrambled apart.

“Why are you apologizing? I am so sorry about that!” The boy was chubby, cheeks flushed red and light brown hair flopping in his eyes from where he awkwardly was bowing his head. He was scooping up an armful of books he had dropped when Stan crashed into him (Stan was doing a lot of crashing into strangers recently, he really was going to need to stop that). 

“Everything okay in here?” A voice boomed from the doorway. The boy looked up, meeting Stan’s wide eyes and panicked head shake with confusion and then a quick nod, cheeks still flushed pink.

“Its fine! I’m sorry, I accidently knocked over a pile!” There was silence for a minute and then the guard let out an understanding chuckle and a ‘Careful Hanscom!’ before the door slammed shut. Stan let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

“Thanks… Hanscom?”

“Ben! My name is Ben, your Highness, I mean.” 

“Nice to meet you then Ben. Look, please don’t tell anyone about this? I’m gonna be in enough trouble as it is when my father sees what I’m wearing.” At that Ben seemed to register the prince’s rumpled state of under-dress, taking it in with big eyes.

“I won't! Do you want me to… get you clothes? I don’t know! Sorry, is that overstepping? But I don’t want you to get in trouble or anything!” Stan let out a nervous snort.

“Actually… can you get Beverly Marsh? Or meet her in the sewing room and tell her I need clothes? Sort of fast?” At Beverly’s name the pink from Ben’s cheeks spread to his ears and he nodded before carefully placing his book stack onto a table and rushing out. 

Stan slid down a bookcase and let his head thump back. He realized with dread pooling at the base of his stomach that Bev may not even be there, that her and Mike and Bill may all be fired or in the process of being terribly punished for something he did. He never should have gotten so comfortable sneaking into the kitchens, now his father was furious at him and he wasn’t going to have any friends. He could feel his hearing fuzz out and his eyes squeeze too tight as his breathing quickened. 

And then Bev was holding his shoulders while Ben paced behind her nervously, holding a pile of clothes.

“There you are Stanny.” She was smirking but the worry behind her eyes was palpable as she took his chin and tilted the side of his face to her, he had forgotten about his father hitting him, about the light bruise that definitely colored his right cheek. That felt like years ago.

“Are you okay? What the fuck did you do last night?” 

“Are you fired?” He asked without answering her question, but he needed to know (and a small, selfish part of him really didn’t want to share just yet what he had found in the woods).

“Nope!” She popped the ‘p’ a bit too forcefully, “In trouble? Yes. Fired? No.” He sighed in relief before taking the clothes from Ben, who looked so very interested in what they were talking about but was too polite to ask. Stan appreciated that. 

“Thank you Ben, sorry again for falling on you.”

“You fell on him?” Stan didn’t deign that with a response as he began to change.

-

“Where is your crown, Stanley.” His father’s eyes were pinned angrily at his hairline and Stan felt himself flinch.

His mother was watching him, face lined with disappointment that was worse than his father’s fury. Stan didn’t think he was going to be able to eat.

“I am sorry, your majesty, it needs to be cleaned.” His father scoffed deep in his throat before lifting his tea cup, flinty eyes following the prince as he sat.

“We will be having a discussion about this later.”

Breakfast was icy and silent, his cheek hurt as his hesitantly chewed at the plain toast he could stomach. The tension made him nauseous and panicky.

He needed to get out of the room but after breakfast was a board meeting he’d be expected to attend.

He needed to see Bill and Mike, make sure they were okay, but he had lessons until late.

He needed a hug.

But most of all, he needed it to be Thursday. 

RICHIE

Richie was sort of screwed and he knew it. 

Usually his walks were shorter and he still had time to sleep for a few hours before starting on his morning chores. But he was supposed to have started his chores at least half an hour before he even arrived at home and he was gonna have to rush. And he wasn’t getting any sleep that was for sure. Well fuck.

The fire in the kitchen had gone out, and the wood basket next to it was empty, the entrance way’s floor and main stairwell was still filthy, there were dishes lined by the wash basin. 

At least his early morning chores weren’t as dull as the rest of his daily tasks, not when he told himself stories, practicing over the top voices, and letting his plots veer unrealistically. 

He could only do it when the Bowers were asleep though, they prefered him to be obedient and silent (Not that he was very good at that anyway, he tended to talk back and speak before he thought things through). 

He didn’t want to let them hear his stories either, they didn’t deserve them. 

Richie’s tales were just for him and he was okay with that (but having an audience earlier, hearing Stan and Eddie laugh at his jokes and listen to what he had to say had made Richie feel something warm deep in his stomach he hadn’t felt in a really long time).

By the time the sun streamed through the window, his head was pounding and body ached but his chores were completed and he had two breakfast trays balanced on each arm as he walked upstairs. 

He desperately wished that he hadn’t been specifically ordered to wake the boys up first, Oscar was cruel, but Henry and Connor liked to sleep in and were their angriest at the 7 AM wake up call. 

“Good morning!” he dodged the pillow lazily slung at him, placing the breakfast tray on Connor’s bedside table and drawing the curtains.

“Get the laundry on your way out.” 

“Yes siree!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Richie dodged another pillow, scooped up the bag of dirty clothes, and quietly closed the door. There was a reason he started with Connor, he was a shithead but he took Richie’s overly enthusiastic cheery jokes with minimal violence. 

Henry was worse. 

And already awake when Richie walked in with his breakfast. Well that was never good. 

“The fire went out last night, fucker, thought you were supposed to fix that?” Henry was picking his nails with a tiny hunting knife (it had a small WT carved into the custom green hilt and watching him use it made Richie’s chest feel tight). He rolled his eyes.

“Sorry ‘bout that sir.” When he leaned down to hand him the tray Henry grabbed his shirt, pulling him in and letting the food clatter to the floor. Richie winced as the boiling water from the teapot splashed at his ankles.  
“You don’t get to talk to me like that Richard. We fucking own you so you don’t just get to decide what chores you do and don’t do. I got… cold.” Richie felt the knife’s tip press against his side and Henry’s tone dropped low and dangerous. 

“Well I didn’t get all that cold last night but I guess I’m not a whiny baby?” 

If you could say anything about Richie Tozier it was that he didn’t let his years under the Bowers’ thumb break his spirit. 

Another thing that could be said about Richie Tozier was that he was a dumb ass. 

Henry’s face was red as he slammed his head into Richie’s and shoved him backwards, watching as he stumbled hard into the wall. The knife’s blade had sliced shallowly into his side. 

“I could fucking kill you! So shut the FUCK up. But feel free to tell my father why I’m up late after you clean up the mess you made and prepare me another breakfast.” 

When he reluctantly kneeled by the bed to gather the broken china, Henry burrowed his hand into Richie’s hair and yanked him upward, chuckling as he yelped.

“Oh, and throw that food into the fire after you relight it, maybe it’ll stop it from fucking dying this time, ‘cuz we don’t want that now do we?”

And as Richie watched a perfectly good breakfast burn, side stinging and stomach growling, he couldn’t fucking wait for next Thursday.


	4. Several years of Thursdays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The three boys bond quickly, Thursdays providing a much needed break from their actual lives.  
> But sometimes Thursdays must be skipped.  
> (AKA in which I zoom through like 3 years of bonding in one chapter)

And Thursdays came and they went. 

They grew into a routine and they grew together, something inexplicably close between the three boys who couldn’t be more different. Between the perfect prince who pretended he wasn’t a prince and who really wasn’t perfect, the tiny isolated boy who didn’t understand how wrong everything around him was, and the grinning servant boy who had a lot of jokes and even more secrets. 

Stan didn’t share about his family, the other boys knew his father was strict but not that he was the king, and he didn’t want to give them any hints that he was. It was nice being treated like he was normal (Bill, Bev, and Mike sure tried but there was always that wariness, which had only grown after being caught that one night. Ben really tried to hide his ingrained respect and nervousness around royalty but he wasn’t all that good at it).

And Richie and Eddie worried about his too tense shoulders and frequent panic attacks. They never mentioned it, just distracted him and made him laugh and gave hugs that loosened him into the silly, giggling  _ child _ he should be.

Eddie talked often of his mother, he didn't really have much else to talk about. He always presented the stories of her overprotective insanity calmly, almost bored. It took a while of catching Richie and Stan’s confused and concerned glances when he told stories and listening to their calming words when he panicked about things that weren’t real for him to catch on. 

After a while his stories about his mother became less lined with blind devotion. They talked him through his hesitance and Richie brought him flowers and Stan lent him books which he pressed the flowers into and hid underneath his bed in a loose floorboard.

Eddie felt free and stopped believing everything his mother told him.

Richie talked about his parents. He raved about them and told stories of normalcy the other two had never experienced. But he also let it slip that they were dead. 

He didn’t say who he was living with now, the other two didn’t press but they could tell it wasn’t pleasant. 

He flinched when they got too close too quickly, he showed up with more bruises and dirtier clothes, he inhaled any food Stan would tuck away and bring or Eddie would offer. Whenever they came too close to asking he’d brush them off with forced jokes and insults they had to beep. So they fed him and made him feel safe enough that he fell asleep in front of them. 

They laughed at his jokes.

And all of them weren’t okay. But they were a bit more okay every Thursday.

**-**

But sometimes Thursday meetings need to be missed.

They create a system for it.

Eddie’s mom occasionally skips her Thursday trips, on days he looks too pale or she has a fit of protectiveness. The first time it happens he panics, and pretends he’s about to vomit and when his mother turns to the medicine cabinet he throws the copy of Little Red Riding Hood (his mother would use it to preach about the animals that could tear him apart outside the tower’s safety when he was little) out the window. 

He hopes it's enough of a warning. 

_ There is a wolf inside even if you can’t tell. Do not enter _ .

Stan is the one who finds it, but Richie figures it out, dragging him away from the tower, clutching the book to his chest to keep it safe.

When Richie explains Stan grins wobbily and calls him smart and Richie flushes red. Neither want to go home, Stan actually winces at the prospect, awkwardly trying to explain his shitty day without revealing too much. Richie eventually drags him down at the base of a tree and starts reading Eddie’s fairy tale in silly voices to calm him down and make him laugh. 

After that they mostly talk about how they wish Eddie was with them. 

The next time Eddie’s mother skips her Thursday trip they find Little Red Riding Hood crookedly thrown at the base of the tower and understand what it means right away. 

**-**

Missing Thursdays always made whoever didn’t attend feel… empty, like they were missing out on something important. 

It was a feeling that only got worse as the years went on.

Stan’s 14th birthday falls on a Thursday. He screams so loud into his pillow when he realizes that Bill hears from his room next door and runs in panicked.

He doesn’t explain, he hasn’t told his friends about where he goes every week, only Ben knows and he’s good at keeping secrets and covering for him (the library is the easiest place to sneak in and out of). 

His father throws a birthday dinner to celebrate, Bev brings him cupcakes from Mike when she dresses him in an uncomfortable, fancy suit and Ben shoots him an apologetic look when he passes the library. 

He is seated next to Patricia Blum, a Princess from a neighboring kingdom, his mother keeps shooting looks at the two of them and grinning sappily. The dinner is as dull as ever even though Patty (as she informs him quickly she prefers to be called) helps, she’s funny and tells him interesting facts about birds, but he still wishes he was in Eddie’s tower. 

When Patty gets distracted into a conversation with someone else he sinks back into the monotonous formality of the ‘party’, working through the etiquette on autopilot while his brain focused on picturing what Eddie and Richie were doing without him. A small selfish part wondering if they missed him.

When he accidentally walks in on Patty kissing her handmaiden, Audra, as he promises to they’re panicked tear stained faces not to tell, he feels some sort of longing deep in his stomach he can’t place.

(Richie and Eddie did miss him and they whine about it when he climbs up next week, they throw him an impromptu party when he blames his absence on his birthday. It's much more fun than his real one).

**-**

Sometimes… missed Thursdays are helpful in the long run. They don’t feel like it. But they can bring them closer, even if they tend to be unpleasant.

Richie misses the least Thursdays, Eddie only able to meet in his own tower when his mother is gone and Stan with his secret royal observations. So when Richie misses two weeks in a row the summer they're 15, the other two are worried. 

It's not that they’re surprised, they know the routine by now, twice a year he skips out on them. He warned them about his absences usually, he even had this time, but he’d never been gone twice in a row. That wasn’t how it worked, he was supposed to miss  _ one _ week and show up as early as possible the next week bruised to hell but grinning the second Eddie’s mother was out of view. 

But after an unprecedented break he finally shows up the next thursday, barely able to pull himself up the tower. Eddie, who’d been far more worried than he’d like to let on snaps at him and regrets it when Richie full body flinches before plastering a fake smile and taunting “Aww Eds, did you miss me?”

“Yes asshole!” And Richie recoils at that, eyes wide in surprise. Like no one had ever missed him before. The thought made Eddie uncomfortable and angry, so he pressed it down, letting his concern come forward reluctantly.

“Where were you, really?”

“My… the people I live with have a big hunting trip every year, invite their friends and shit to stay over the week leading up to it, it's harder to sneak out with more people. Someone came early this year. But!” He flourished widely, “I’m alone all week!”

(Patrick had strolled up a week early at Henry’s request, Richie hated Patrick, he always watched him too closely and was too spontaneous in his cruelty so that Richie could never predict or dodge his hits. An extra week of waiting on Patrick and the Bowers along with Belch and Victor’s appearance the next 7 days was fucking him up. But he had a full week to sleep and eat and be alone, so he’d be  _ fine _ even if right now he’s not doing great.)

Eddie levels him with a squint that tells him he isn’t hiding it well.

“Who  _ do  _ you live with?” Richie stills, blowing air through his lips harshly before steadying himself, shifting his gaze to the other boy, eyes filled with enough impulsive trust it made Eddie feel sort of dizzy. He supposes two weeks apart sort of made it clear how much they’ve come to care about each other over the years.

“I… my… Stepfamily.” 

And Eddie Kaspbrak, raised in a tower with very little human interaction and without the guidance of Stan had little in the way of social cues, So he didn’t see that it was all that rude when he asked: “Are you guys really poor or something?”

But Richie bristles, tugging self consciously on his shirt sleeve.

“Fuck you!”

“But if you live with your  _ family _ it doesn’t make sense unless your poor that-”

“ _ Stepfamily _ . There's a difference. Like how your mom is merely my everyday whore, and not my wife!” He laughs defensively and Eddie screws up his face.

“Beep BEEP!” They change the subject then, Eddie shoving the new information about Richie aside. 

When Stan shows up after dark Eddie tries to reopen the topic, but Richie does his best to brush it off, his original nerve gone.

“Your stepfamily? Why didn’t you go on the trip with them?” Stan asks, something in his voice Eddie doesn’t understand almost sounding like he already has his suspicions.

Richie looks like he wants to shoot back again, insults and jokes already forming on his tongue when he’s interrupted.

“You know you can trust us right?”

“Yeah… I… they're just not… they're not very nice okay?” He looks uncomfortable with the suddenly heavy atmosphere and cracks an awkward grin up at them. Eddie wants to press but Stan reaches out and grabs his knee. 

That's enough for now.


	5. Lilacs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan keeps secrets and figures something out

“Okay, so they really don’t...know you’re the prince?” Ben cocked his head, as Stan tried on a stolen old uniform (Ben’s blush still hadn’t died down from when Stan had asked him to distract Bev while he took them). Ben was the only one who knew about his weekly escapades, Stan had needed an ally to help cover for him, the library was the least guarded place to sneak in and out of, and even though Ben would never ask he felt like he needed to provide some explanation. It felt sort of nice to have someone to talk with about it if he was being honest, even if he wasn’t completely ready to share with his friends.

“No Ben. They don’t. It's easier that way, they treat me like an actual human.” He’s not quite sure why needing Richie and Eddie to think of him as an equal is so painfully important, but it is in a way he’s never experienced with other friends. Thinking about them bowing in front of him and censoring themselves and averting their eyes out of respect makes something deep in his stomach  _ ache _ .

“I don’t think they’d-” Stan leveled him with a look, it's dryness impacted by the too big shirt sliding off one shoulder.

“Yeah I don’t think this one is going to work.” Ben snorted, offering up a smaller one from the pile with an easy smile. ( _ “You know Stanley, I’d’ve thought a fancy palace servant would have more clothes.” Eddie’s head snaps up at Richie’s remark, the way it often does when someone mentions royalty, he has the rose colored perception of the monarchy that's described in story books, Stans throat feels dry at the sudden unwanted attention to his lie. _

_ “I… I do! This is just my favorite shirt!” Richie laughs at that, leaning in and tapping at the embroidered emblem. _

_ “It is real fucking fancy, but like, you wear your favorite shirt every Thursday?” _

_ “Yup!” Stan’s tone is tight, laced with his silent screams of Drop It Please Just Drop It. Richie squints skeptically before shrugging and Eddie leans half off his bed, eyes glittering. _

_ “Speaking of the castle-” fuck “What is your job? Do you go to any balls? Is there a prince and princess?”  _

_ He answers Eddie’s slew of excited questions with what answers he can, skirting around ones specifically about him. Richie nods along, looking almost as jealous as Eddie, occasionally cutting in with a sarcastic quip. _

_ They eventually drop the subject, neither of the other boys looking as though anything was off, Stan breathes out and sets to find more servants' clothes to wear on Thursdays. Bill had been looking for his brown tunic for weeks. _ )

“I’m not saying you need to tell them just… think about it okay?”

And he does think about it. He thinks about all the ways Eddie and Richie could treat him differently if they knew and all the ways it could go wrong and how combining his two worlds could cause such a catastrophic implosion that could destroy everything.

And he doesn’t think about the consequences of them finding out on their own, he’s careful, it won’t happen.

He doesn’t tell Richie and Eddie he is a prince. He doesn’t tell any of his friends about Richie and Eddie.

He doesn’t know why he doesn’t think of Eddie and Richie in the same vein as his palace friends, when he brings it up to Ben he shoots him a knowing look before mumbling through a laugh “maybe it's because they’re friends in… a different context” but he's not sure about it, he doesn’t think talking in the tower instead of the castle would change much.

He’s never been all that good at sorting out his emotions though.

But he does manage to sort them out eventually one winter when Stan is 16. 

The winter when Stan is 16 and brings Richie his thickest pair of wool socks after watching him trudge through the snow barefoot and he almost cries, throwing himself into a grateful hug Stan doesn’t have enough context to process but he presses his cheek to the other boy’s hair anyway. 

The winter when Stan is 16 and he teaches Eddie how to dance and Eddie is so terrible he steps on his feet and tumbles them to the floor so they’re tangled together, Eddie’s eyes are closed from how hard he laughs, faces close and Stan wants them to be closer. 

The winter when Stan is 16 and realizes he’s in love with them both. 

The winter when Stan is 16 and kisses Richie who bursts into tears and scrambles out of the tower. 

The winter when Eddie is 15 and three quarters and realizes when he watches Stan kiss a horrified Richie and realizes belatedly that boys can like boys. That he likes two boys and he didn’t know that was allowed.

Stan just shrugs when he asks because he too has no clue 

(Well it's definitely not allowed for a prince but a lot of things he does nowadays aren’t allowed for a prince and in this tower no one knows he’s a prince.)

Stan is 16 and Eddie is 15 and three quarters when they kiss for the first time and both feel the overwhelming absence of their third member.

“I’ll go find him.” 

“Please come back?” Eddie looks hopeful and Stan can’t find the heart to tell him that Richie might not want to come back, that most of the time people didn’t think boys should kiss other boys and from Richies reaction he was one of them. Stan doesn’t want Eddie to know how much he fucked up, not yet, not when Eddie kissing him was the only thing keeping him grounded.

The woods feel so much larger than they ever have before and Stan can feel his panic mounting, he was never going to find Richie. For all he knew he could have just run home and they had no goddamn clue where Richie lived, just that it wasn’t good. Stan knew, even though Richie was relatively closed off about his personal life that Richie would do just about anything to avoid going home before he absolutley needed to and the idea that his stupid, impulsive descion scared Richie so much he went back there early is makes Stan’s throat feel painfully tight.

He tried to clear his head and be pragmatic about the whole situation like he’d been taught to do since birth but his concern and paranoia was overriding his princely training. Richie and Eddie tended to do that. He attempted a different tactic, focusing instead on Eddie. Eddie who kissed him  _ first _ . Eddie who said he loved Richie too and felt the same way about Stan. He blows into his cupped hands to warm them, wincing as his breath fogs out in front of him. If Richie was still in the forest he must be freezing without shoes or really anything warmer than his threadbare tunic.

The thought of discovering Richie dead of hypothermia kept Stan moving forward (it’d happened to a guard who’d been lost in the middle of a patrol during a blizzard the year Stan was 6, his father had forced him into the room with the corpse as a preemptive lesson on keeping track of his troops if the country ever went to war. Stan had never forgotten it).

He isn’t sure how long he’s been looking, measuring the time by how much cold manages to seep through the thick fabric of the coat, when he spots a shaking, small figure curled in front of a tree.

“ _ Richie _ !” The boy looks up at the call of his name and backpedals in a panic until he slams into the tree’s trunk. He looks more scared than Stan’s ever seen him, wide eyes puffy and bloodshot something horribly resigned slipping behind them as Stan gets closer. 

He’s  _ shivering _ , the hands wrapped around his knees shaded a concerning blue, Stan wants to grab them and warm them in his but he’s not sure how well that will go over. He restrains himself and instead gently sits in front of him, wincing as the icy slush soaks through his pants. 

“I’m so sorry!” Richie bursts out, a new wave of tears flooding down his cheeks and Stan’s mind goes blank of the apology speech he'd prepared over the course of his search. Why the  _ fuck  _ was  _ Richie  _ the one apologizing.

“Richie you didn’t do anything wrong.” He soothes, reaching out and laying his hand over his knee but Richie recoils like he’s been burned.

“I… I tried so hard to hide it.... I didn’t want to  _ infect you _ but I did! I didn’t mean to, but I... I’m so  _ sorry Stan _ !” Stan has no clue what he’s talking about, just that it sends something sharp and painful through his heart.

“Richie what the hell are you talking about?”

“I… I turned you  _ into a fairy!  _ I didn’t  _ mean  _ to! I don’t want to be one! Please don’t tell the royal family, I’ll do whatever you want me to I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry! I… I-” He breaks off with a sob, burying his face in his knees and Stan can’t take it anymore.

“Oh  _ Richie _ .” And he wraps himself around the other boy’s shaking form holding tight when he tries to pull away, “You didn’t  _ turn me anything _ .”

“I… I didn’t?” Stan laughs brokenly and wipes under one of his eyes with his thumb, shaking his head, “So you won’t… get me arrested for assaulting you?”

“ _ I  _ kissed  _ you _ !”

“I  _ know _ but you wouldn’t have if I hadn’t… my stepfamily has alway said… said the king would have me taken away and... made an example of.” He’s clearly holding back and Stan selfishly wants to pry and get a clearer idea of what Richie is forced to deal with, but that would just be cruelly manipulative and he would never take advantage of Richie like that when he was so vulnerable, “You really won’t tell?” He winces at the wariness still wobbling through Richie’s tone.

“No, I won’t tell, but you haven’t done  _ anything _ wrong. I’m sorry I kissed you.” Richie finally leans into the hug, flopping against Stan with an exhausted sigh. Eventually he mumbles, hushed like he’s confessing a secret “I… I didn’t hate the kiss.” 

“You didn’t?” He shakes his head, face still pressed to his chest so Stan can’t see how his cheeks suddenly burn crimson.

Eventually Stan drags him off the ground, overwhelmingly conscious of how hard the other boy is shaking and how icy his digits feel as he grips them, and they head back to the tower. They have plenty to discuss.

“I wouldn’t let them hurt you by the way.” Richie looks confused, “The king, I’d protect you before he could take you.” 

He’s suddenly dizzy with the realization of how true that is, how quickly he’d defend either of these boys from his father.

Richie looks overwhelmed and once again concerningly watery eyed at the declaration, and for the first time Stan is a little sad they don’t know he’s the prince. Richie deserves to know there is someone out there willing to go the true lengths Stan had confessed he would go.

He still doesn’t tell them who he really is once they return to the tower, just watches Eddie fuss over Richie’s frozen form and mulls over the fact that he’s in love.

And after a long conversation that the two boys he loves, love him back.

**-**

Their relationship is something new and beautiful and exciting but also fragile and Stan finds himself hiding both halves of his life away from each other with even more intensity than before. Unfortunately he slipped up more often, his excitement to get to the tower and grow whatever had formed between the three making him sloppy.

“Did you fucking rob the prince?” Eddie asks, edged with panic, one night he rolls himself over the ledge. He looks up, head cocked in confusion from where he’s flopped on the floor.

“What?”

“You’re wearing a crown! So if you robbed the royal family I don’t want to be complicit-”

“Eddie! Eddie, it's fine, I… I’m best friends with the prince, we were messing around and he put it on my head, must have forgotten to take it off!” He laughs, edged with nervous false-sincerity, not that it's a total lie, he lets Bill jokingly wear his crown often when they’re alone, Eddie’s eyes sparkle with the slightly manic glimmer he gets when he learns something exciting about the castle.

“You are  _ best friends with the prince? _ And he just lets you wear his crown?!” 

“Yup!” His voice is tight and he quickly stows the circlet in the bag of pastries he’d swiped before he left, pressing a kiss to Eddie’s cheek so he doesn’t notice. 

He was overwhelmed with the relief that Richie was running late and he had only made his stupid mistake in front of Eddie who was too unused to normal people to be suspicious and too starry eyed about palace life to question. 

He knows he should tell them, but the three’s newfound relationship has done something interesting to his psyche. He feels terribly guilty about not telling them in a way he hadn’t when they were just best friends but there were suddenly new stakes in them finding out who he really was. He couldn’t tell them, he couldn’t risk it, especially not now. Now he’s got something even more precious to lose.

Richie clambers through the window, drawing Stan from his spiral and Eddie from his wide eyed fantasies. Richie tended to do that. It was something Stan fucking adored about him, there was a spark, an unkillable light that shined through him and commanded attention. 

“I have  _ arrived _ !” Eddie rolls his eyes, pushing the other boy down and plopping himself into his lap, “Why,  _ Edward _ , how very forward of you!”

Eddie shushes him aggressively, holding a hand out for one of Stan’s pastries which he hands over gladly, and shoving it directly in Richie’s mouth. The boy all but  _ moans _ into the dessert, shoving half of it into his mouth before Eddie stops him and frantically makes him slow down, snarking that he doesn’t want to watch him puke again. That is the little hidden part of Eddie that Stan loves, Richie has his spark but Eddie is soft. Softer than he likes to pretend under his wide eyed chaos and sharply trained anxiety, he never outwardly shows it but Stan knows it's there, he likes to imagine that Richie does too. It's clear in how his eyes are worried even as they glare squintly at Richie’s open mouth chewing. It is obvious through his left hand and how it is lightly holding Richie’s heavily bruised wrist, inspecting it without interrogating. You can see it in the secret grins he keeps shooting Stan that make him melt as he scootches closer. 

“You aren’t allowed to kiss me to get me to shut up anymore. You must use food.” 

“I always use food, darling.” He means for it to come out snarky but it’s surprisingly fond.

“Well I know  _ you do _ , I’m talking to Eddie over here. Take some notes, Eds.”

“ _ Not _ my name! And how am I supposed to get fancy food, huh? If it's not in the tower then it’s Stan’s job.” Richie concedes with a quick kiss which Eddie leans into momentarily before shoving him off. Stan suddenly finds him on the receiving end of a bright, crooked Richie grin, taking in his cocked eyebrow and tilted head before quipping that he never agreed to Eddie’s claims and therefore they weren’t valid. Both of his boys pout at that, Richie flopping his head into Stan’s lap with a dramatic sigh, dragging a cross armed and jutted lipped Eddie with him.

“You two can be far too alike some times.”

“Can  _ not _ !” Richie cries at the same time Eddie squawks out “You could not be more wrong!”

“I rest my case.”

“ _ Yeah _ well Stan is best friends with the prince!”

“What does that have to do with  _ anything? _ ” He spluttered because that was not dropping it and based on how Richie’s face screwed up he suspected something.

“But… you’re his servant?” Eddie’s eyes pinged between both boys, Richie still looked hopelessly confused and Stan was sure he had a similar expression as he tried to puzzle out the issue with his statement.

“Yes?” 

“And he’s  _ nice  _ to you?” 

“Of course, why wouldn’t he be?” The  _ idea  _ of being mean to Bill or Ben or Bev or Mike just because they worked for him was overwhelmingly disgusting. Richie hums, soft and contemplative, clearly wanting to say more but holding back, uncharacteristically quiet.

He surged up pressing a kiss to the underside of Stan’s jaw and shattering the illusion of tension as he tugs out a slightly crumpled lilac blossom from his pocket.

“ _ This  _ is why I was late, anyway! Blossomed way too early so they’re all going to die. But  _ Eds _ you gotta smell it before they do!” He grinned ernastly, Stan’s palace update forgotten, pressing the flower into Eddie’s hands who hesitated the way he always did before bringing it up to his nose and inhaling.

“Oh  _ wow _ !” He fell back against Richie’s chest giggling, shoving the lilac into Stan’s face “Smell it smell it smell it!” 

“I’ve smelled lilacs before Eddie!” Stan defends but he’s laughing too as he leans into it. It does smell rather nice, clean and different from the heavy, sickly perfume of the roses planted exclusively in the one palace garden Stan was allowed into. Eddie yanks it back, stretching up to kiss Richie’s cheek as a thank you and studying the stem’s tiny little blossoms that made up the flower with wide wistful eyes. He watches them, Richie propping his chin on Eddie’s head, eyes trained down at the other boy who periodically brings the flower close to revel in its scent, nose wrinkled slightly.

“Stan get your ass over here.” Richie mumbles into Eddie’s hair, and Eddie reaches over, tugging him into their little pile, tilting him by his chin so his head is comfortably settled against the soft material of Eddie’s sweater sleeve. They lay in comfortable silence, warm and close and Stan doesn’t think he could ever be more content

“I love you guys.” Richie whispers eventually, words slurred with sudden sleepiness. Eddie shoots a fond look towards Stan, shifting imperceptibly so the taller boy can lean more heavily against him.

“Go to sleep Rich.”

“ _ No _ !” He grumbles but both can tell he’s already drifting off, Eddie rolls his eyes and mouths  _ idiot _ , which Stan corrects with a silent  _ our idiot _ .

No, Stan decides firmly, Eddie and Richie can never know he's the prince. He can’t lose this.


	6. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Richie each discover someone they trust has been lying to them

“Eddie-bear are you  _ sure _ you don’t feel ill?

“No! Mommy, really, I feel great!” That was a lie. He was lying to his mother and it made his stomach churn even more than it already was. He felt wobbly and weak, insides throbbing with a dull burn, but he just cannot handle skipping tonight’s visit. Stan had said he was going on a trip for the next  _ two _ weeks and Richie had been bringing him new flowers every time he visited now that winter was melting into spring, and even if he didn’t want to admit it, it felt like he was shaking apart at the seams everytime he had to drop the dilapidated Little Red Riding Hood storybook out of the window, especially now that they were together.

“I don’t know baby, maybe I should stay home tonight, how about you take some more medicine and then we can decide.” When she said they could decide she really meant she would decide for him, he’d been able to translate more and more of his mother’s bullshit since Stan and Richie and he didn’t know if he really liked it, things had been easier when he didn’t know how to doubt her.

But now he knew well enough that if he accepted the medicine she was holding uncomfortably close to his lips that the only thing leaving this tower would be Little Red Riding Hood.

“Mommy, I’m fine. You can go!”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were trying to get rid of me Eddie!” Her eyes watered dangerously.

“No! That isn’t it at all! I promise!” 

“It is! I do so much for you Eddie, and you  _ hate me _ !”

It took him two hours and several reluctant sips of bitter liquid from the long green bottle that he lied through his teeth about making him feel better because his mother seemed suspiciously sure it wouldn’t, but eventually she left.

He waited until she was completely out of view to scramble for a bucket and puke his guts out.

Absurdly, he felt better afterwards. 

But better didn’t mean he felt  _ good _ , so he crawled under his covers and let his body shut down until Stan and Richie’s hushed conversation and comfortable warmth sat close next to him on the bed woke him hours later.

“Heya sleeping beauty!” Richie crowed happily when he poked his head out from under the blankets, snorting at his disgruntled expression as Stan ruffled his hair.

“How long have you been here?”

“Not long, didn’t want to wake you up.” Richie flops next to him, offering a tiny white and yellow flower, “Daisy!”

“It doesn't smell like anything.” He grumbles, twisting the thin little stem in between his fingers regardless, poking at the rounded petals.

“Yeah, sorry ‘bout that, I was in a rush.”

“You look like shit, baby.” Stan comments blankly, hand resting comfortably on top of his head, he sits up more to push it closer against him.

“Wow, thanks.” He doesn’t look up from his daisy, even as Richie leans forward to press his hand against his forehead. It’s nicer than when his mother does it, gentler despite the rough calluses across his palms, he doesn’t feel like he’s trying to force a fever to appear through sheer force alone. 

He feels immediately guilty for thinking about his mother like that, she wanted to help him, it’s just that she wasn’t... perfect at going about it.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, my stomach hurts and I threw up but I feel a little better.” He offers and Richie’s face scrunches up before he flops next to him.

“How the fuck did you get your mom to leave you alone?”

“I lied.” 

“Fuck yeah.” He snorts, ignoring the headache that has started to build up behind his temples since he woke up. Stan still looks terribly concerned, pushing back his hair and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Don’t think I’ve actually ever seen you sick even though you say you are all the time. You look very pitiable.”

“ _ Shut up _ , no I don’t.”

“You do, it's like I’m looking at a sad little puppy.” Richie offers unhelpfully.

“You can’t bully me, I’m sick and that’s  _ mean _ ! You’re supposed to be nice to your boyfriend if he’s sick, it should be a rule.” Richie rolls his eyes, crawling off the bed and leaning over him.

“Can I get you anything? You know, so I can help you and be nice?”

“ _ Yeah _ , ugh, long green bottle in that cabinet over there.” He winces internally, trying to prepare himself for the bitter burning that would remain seared on his tongue for hours, he knew it was supposed to make him better but sometimes it didn’t feel like it.

Hours spent laughing with his boyfriends made him feel much better than the medicine never did, some sort of medicinal power tangled in Richie’s lap as he told his big, dramatized stories about things that never happened or released by playing with Stan’s always-perfect, always-fluffy curls until he relaxed enough to ramble about birds or reluctantly told him about the palace.

Richie bounds over to the cabinet with his stupid, long legs and Stan repositions him against his chest, resting his chin on the top of his head.

“Excited for your trip?” He asks absently, he likes the idea of travel, seeing new places, people, _ diseases and ways to be hurt or killed _ \- he blinks away the mounting discomfort growing in his gut about the things outside the tower. He wasn’t traveling, Stan was, and he would live vicariously through his stories. That's how it worked and that's what was safe.

“ _ No _ .” Stan grumbles unhappily into his hair, “I’ll miss you two... but don’t tell Richie, it'd go to his head.”

“Wouldn’t  _ dream _ of it, we’ll miss you too, for the record.”

“You better.” 

He closes his eyes and leans against Stan’s chest, he still feels terrible but it’s much less terrible than he would if it was just him and Sonia.

“Eds, I can't  _ find _ it.” Richie whines, waving exactly the correct bottle dramatically, fist tightly held around the neck, “This is the only green bottle in here!”

“Because that’s the right bottle dipshit.” Stan’s chest rumbles behind him with quiet laughter.

It takes him a second to register how Richie’s whole face is screwed up in confusion before he brings his nose up to the top and sniffs it, glaring at the liquid with wide eyes.

“No it’s not.”

“ _ Yes _ , it is, now  _ give it _ .” Richie’s confusion drops into horror he can’t even begin to comprehend.

“You… you’ve been  _ drinking this _ ?” He waves the bottle again, panicked and reckless, so some of it splashes across his hand.

“Why, Rich, what’s wrong with it?” Stan asks hesitantly, his grip on Eddie tightening in such a slight motion Eddie isn’t quite sure he’s aware of it happening.

“This isn’t  _ medicine _ , Eddie. This is floor cleaner.” 

“What the  _ fuck, _ no it’s not!” Because it isn’t, Eddie’s been taking it for years, it isn’t fucking floor cleaner. His floor is covered in padding, why the fuck would he even own floor cleaner?

“Yes, it is. It doesn’t smell that much like it, I think it’s super diluted but it is definitely what they sell in town for cleaning. Same bottle and everything.” Eddie just shakes his head, disregarding how it makes his headache spike, crawling out of Stan’s tense hold because he fucking needs space right now.

“It’s not fucking floor cleaner Richie. Why would my mother feed me  _ floor cleaner _ ?” 

“I don’t  _ know _ ! But this is the shit I use! It’s essentially just really fucking strong soap! I repeat: you shouldn’t be drinking this!” What the fuck was he even implying? That Eddie’s mother was poisoning him?    
If he thought about it, actually  _ wanted  _ to think about it, then it made sense. How his medication always made him feel sicker, how he always felt weaker the longer he spent with his mother and her protective measures, it all really made sense if he was willing to consider the idea.

He was not.

How could he be, when Richie was asking him to think about his mother trying to hurt him, his mother who had always just been trying to protect him and keep him safe and care for him because he _w_ _ as  _ weak. It wasn’t her fault, it couldn’t be, he just  _ was. _

“What the fuck are you trying to say?”

“I just…  _ jesus _ , Eds, this is not safe for consumption, no fucking wonder you feel sick.”

“I feel sick because I am sick, Richie.” He grinds out, that has to be it, he isn’t being posioned or anything, is mother is fucking taking care of him. That has to be it.

“You’re mom has been making you  _ drink floor cleaner! _ ” She’s not she’s not  _ she’s not.  _

“Shut  _ up _ !” It’s fueled with more anger than he thinks he’s ever aimed at one of his boys before, desperate for him to just  _ stop  _ making Eddie’s whole world crumble around him. 

The red overtaking his vision blocks him from clocking how forcefully Richie flinches, how he shrunk in on himself the second Eddie had snapped at him. But Stan notices it, eyes pinging between both boys before carefully laying a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and dragging him back.

“Okay, okay, everyone calm down.”

“Sorry, Eddie, could just be… a similar bottle or something.” Richie mutters, propping himself on a pillow halfway across the room, watching them carefully. Eddie eyes him, just as tense, unsure which one of them should truly be apologizing.

He just nods and leans back into Stan’s chest.

“It’s fine.” He doesn’t bring up how the bottle is still across the room, sitting on his little table, unassuming and still, like it hadn’t sent Eddie’s stability crumbling.

It wasn’t the night he had wanted, he knew it wasn’t going to be from the second he woke up with a headache and his mother discussing skipping her Thursday trip to town. The idea of not seeing Stan for two whole weeks and the long necked green bottle tainted everything in a shade of awkward nervousness. Eventually Richie made his way back onto Eddie’s bed, pressing a kiss to his cheek like an apology and relaxing into their comfortable conversation. 

He was quieter than usual, and Eddie couldn’t match the guilt he felt over it with the anger he still had for the insinuation that his mother was trying to hurt him.

He watched them when they climbed down early in the morning, watery sunlight peeking through the mist, peeking just over the ledge so they couldn’t see him. Watching as Richie crashed Stan into a kiss and they lingered for a bit too long, foreheads pressed together, trying uselessly to imagine what they were saying to each other.

_ (“Do you really think she’s poisoning him?” Richie swallowed shakily, shoulders creeping slowly nearer to his ears at the reminder of the argument. _

_ “Yeah… I’m pretty fucking sure.” _

_ “Keep an eye on him for me?” _

_ “What else would I do?” Stan cups his cheek and tugs him in for another kiss before they seperate to their seperate directions.) _

He can’t swallow back the doubt that had been simmering in his gut since the argument when his mother returns home in her familiar flurry of panicked forehead kisses and worried questions and clinking bottles.

“Mommy, what is this?” He asks, holding up an identical green bottle as he helps unpack her bags, she yanks it out of his hands and places it next to the half empty, argument-starting, old one.

“It’s medicine, baby.” She informs him like he’s a toddler, saccharine sweet and condescending. There is a startling difference between when she calls him baby and when Stan does; when Stan does it makes him feel all warm inside, fuzzy and fairy-tale-in-love, when Sonia does it he thinks she may actually see him as nothing more than an infant.

“I… I know that. I was more wondering what was in it?” 

“Where is this all coming from Eddie-bear?” She asks tersely, carefully removing a small brown bottle from the cabinet, holding it in her open palm. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever thought her doing so as a warning before.

“I was just curious.”

“Curiosity is a dangerous thing, it could overwhelm a sensitive little boy like you!” 

“Of… of course, I’m sorry mommy.”

“That’s my good boy! Now go lay down while I make lunch.” She slots the little brown bottle back into its place in the cabinet, and he realizes with horror that relief floods through her body when she closes the door, cutting them both off from the medication. He doesn’t like how he tenses when she pets his hair. 

He lays down and closes his eyes, feeling ill in a way that is different than usual when she stands above him and tucks his blankets tightly around his legs, it’s too warm but he doesn’t kick them off, doesn’t move, doesn’t sleep.

He thinks about Richie’s screwed up, horrified face and a cabinet full of unlabeled bottles. 

He stops himself from turning to watch as she cooks, swallowing back his sudden discomfort every time he hears her splash something into a bowl.

She “wakes” him half an hour later, not that he ever slept, too on edge. She watches him eat a whole bowl of soup without touching a drop herself, packing the remaining pot away neatly before ushering him back to bed.

He tries not to read too much into his sudden grogginess and unsettled stomach, tries not to think about the bitter aftertaste the soup left down his throat.

She’s his  _ mother _ . 

She would never hurt him. She wouldn’t.

**-**

Richie Tozier was distracted which wasn’t never a good thing, especially for a boy with a stepfamily who were more than happy to let out their pent up anger through their fists when they’re unsatisfied. 

Boys who were terribly concerned for their boyfriend’s safety don’t follow orders quite as efficiently as hopeless, obedient ones with nothing to care about, but they do get more bruises.

He finds scrubbing floors a much more demanding task now, which is terribly inconvenient because he needs to do it daily (Henry seems particularly skilled at getting mud on his boots) and the house has a lot of floors that need cleaning. He can’t stop thinking of Eddie downing the thick soapy syrup everytime he mixes it into buckets of water to scrub it over tile.

He really doesn’t know what to do about it, and despite himself he finds himself aching for his father’s company. He hadn’t in a long time, it hurt too much to think about his parents and his circumstances were already far too dismal to add in the long suppressed mourning he’d never quite been allowed to feel properly. He thinks he might explode out of sadness if he tried. But his father had always given excellent advice, when he was younger it was often for silly things like the time he’d broken a plate and hid in a tree so his mother couldn’t find him to yell at him. He had a feeling he’d be good at relationship advice too, not that this was the most conventional need for relationship advice. Richie was floundering though, he had absolutely no idea how to handle the situation he’d gotten himself into.

He wasn’t too keen on making one of two people who actually loved him hate him by perseverating on an issue that technically is none of his business, but he also wasn’t too keen on the idea of Eddie regularly consuming poison.

By Monday he had managed to come up with exactly zero solutions to his problem and the stress of a Thursday fast approaching with no Stan to act as a moderator is really fucking with him.

It’s part of the reason he doesn’t hear someone knocking on the door. It’s really not his fault, they almost never get visitors this far out into the countryside and Henry’s friends just barged in when they visited, it’s easy to ignore knocking when you haven’t heard it in a while.

“ _ Richard get the  _ **_door_ ** _! _ ” He starts, stumbling with the armful of sheets he’d been carrying before dumping them unceremoniously into an armchair, “ _ Richard! _ ”

“I’m  _ getting it _ !” He is  _ sure  _ that his tone isn’t going to go over well with his stepfather, but it’s better than having him come down himself to check. 

“Hello?” 

The man on the other side of the door’s formal smile dropped slightly as he eyed Richie up and down, not unkindly, but with the same uncomfortable concern Eddie and Stan have when he shows up visibly injured or lets something unpleasant slip when he tells a story. Richie can feel himself shrink a bit even as he levels the man with an easy grin. The guy was fucking fancy, thats for sure, hair slicked into a frankly absurd pompadoured ponytail and royal symbol stitched in the left lapel of a well made suit. 

“Hello, is this the Tozier estate?” Richie felt his stomach roil, because no, it wasn’t the Tozier estate, not anymore. But he just nodded, it was much easier to nod than explain that he was the only Tozier left and everything in the property, including himself, now belonged to the Bowers.

“Ah, lovely, quite out of the way you know! I have a message from the palace.” He sort of wanted to ask if the guy knew Stan but he had a feeling that would lead to some questioning on how  _ he  _ knew the self proclaimed “Prince’s best friend” so he thought better of it.

“You do? What is it?” They’d never gotten personally delivered mail, his stepfamily always had to pick it up when they traveled to town, much less a hand delivered message from the  _ palace _ .

“An update on the current status of the kingdom,” Richie couldn’t hold back his snort at the little bow he gave when offering the letter, it seemed unnecessary when Richie was so obviously the last person on Earth who should be bowed to, “It is a new initiative from the Prince to inform the people yearly of how everything is going.” He hesitated, looking slightly embarrassed, “Can you read? Prince Stanley did inform me of that possibility and I can read it to you if-” Richie stopped processing the man’s words, brain quickly shorting out.  _ Prince Stanley. Prince  _ **_Stanley_ ** _.  _

“I can read.” He mumbled waveringly as he snapped partially out of his stupor and the messenger smiled. He broke the seal, desperate to confirm he’d heard wrong or this was just some stupid coiencidence because he had never known anything about the royal family that his boyfriend hadn’t told him or his stepfamily hadn’t complained about. 

He hadn’t heard wrong.

Scrawled in a familiar neat script at the bottom of the letter,  _ As approved by His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Stanley Uris _ . Fuck.

“Wonderful, now you’ll see-”

“What is  _ taking so fucking long Richard-  _ Oh, hello!” Oscar gripped his shoulder too tightly and yanked the letter out of his hand, voice slipping startlingly to falsely pleasant. Richie barely registers it, barely registers when the grip on his shoulder shifts into a shove and he stumbles out of the doorway, barely registers his stepfather apologizing for his “ _ wicked, mannerless servant boy _ ” or the tightness in Oscar’s shoulders that read a beating once the door was closed.

“It’s  _ fine _ sir, he didn’t do anything wrong, you didn’t need to  _ push him _ . Now-” The messenger sounds absolutley fucking disgusted and if Richie’s head wasn’t spinning he’d be incredibly amused by it. But he can barely hear him talking.

_ As approved by His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Stanley Uris _

_ His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Stanley Uris _

_ Crown Prince Stanley Uris _

_ Stanley FUCKING Uris _

Oscar holds him down once the door is closed and spits in his face, telling him that if he ever tries to open his mail again he’ll fix him so good he won’t be able to walk to the door the next time the messenger comes. He can’t find it in himself to care even as he swiftly kicks at his prone form and throws the crumpled letter in his face.

“It’s useless garbage anyway, especially now that _ you’ve _ read it. I don’t care about how the fucking kingdom is doing, has nothing to do with  _ me _ .”

Richie is absently grateful for how self absorbed his entire stepfamily is, it makes it easier for him to pocket the crumpled bottom half of the letter containing Stan’s signature and hide his overwhelmed devastation.

He finishes his duties in a haze, eyes burning with held back tears.

He’s dating a prince. And he never knew. Stan never fucking told them. No, Stan had lied to their fucking faces about it.

He isn’t sure why he feels so betrayed, but his mind keeps cycling about the fact that Stan had told them he was a servant. He had clearly been high up and well treated but he was a  _ servant _ , it drew a common line between him and Richie even though Stan had always been far more perfect. But now Richie was realizing that was because he was a fucking  _ prince _ .

He doesn’t know how the fuck he’s supposed to tell Eddie, honestly Eddie would probably goddamn thrilled. 

Dread slithers down his spine, three had always been one too many, no relationship had three people. Eddie would choose a prince and princes don’t date people like Richie.

He doesn’t know why Stan lied, why he gave him false hope that they could be something sustainable, didn't tell him right off the bat that this whole arrangment was going to end with Richie alone again.

The issue with a relationship between three broken boys who can only see each other once a week in the same location, is it precariously balanced on top of a foundation of trust. 

It’s carefully built, forming during the first few weeks of Eddie hesitantly crawling closer to them each time they came until he could touch them without scrubbing his hands clean, strengthening everytime the tension in Stan’s shoulder leaks away the second he tumbles over the window ledge, solidifying each time Richie feels safe enough to fall asleep in front of them. 

It slowly builds alongside his hope that maybe the three of them can  _ be something _ .

But trust, just like hope, is a tricky thing, it takes so long to grow, in between kisses and shared secrets and soft touches, that you forget it can be broken.

One crack in the foundation and everything can come tumbling down.

It's dangerous to cry in a household that hates you, Richie had learned young that all that does is just give those who want to hurt you more ammunition.

But by the time he realizes the burning behind his eyes has faded, long held in tears pouring down his cheeks and blurring the ground in front of him, there is nothing he can do to stop them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I've never clarified Richie has never been like off his property except to be in the woods becuase he was too young when his parents were alive and the Bowers don't let him come to town which is why he has never heard the prince's name before

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic and I don't know how consistently I'll update but I could not get this AU out of my head, I'm also still trying to figure out the formatting so I'm sorry if it's a lil rough!  
> TW! Gay Slurs  
> (Anyway for reference- they meet when they're all 12/first chapter is all there lives up until that point for background)


End file.
